Also, any chance of sharing some of those fully shifted images with the 24 TSE II? I've done a series of test shots with it on the HCam and an IQ180 and find it quite soft towards the edges, with physical vignetting starting at around 6mm of shift (half of what it can do)

".......I should mention that Hartblei tried to produce a similar "universal" Medium Format camera some time ago, but the effort was a failure....."

Interesting, that as you probably never used one, you give such a bold and unproofed statement. We are selling the HCam now since 3 years, there are 3 versions of the camera, we have improved many details and a version HCam-B2 is in the making, a lot of successful Architecture and other photographers worldwide are using it. So as Gerald Donovan- who is one of these successful users - already asked - how do you define failure ? Could you please elaborate on this ?

Overall, I welcome the move of Alpa to do the same(or very similar - for differences look at www.hcam.de) thing that we do, your argumentation is as valid for the HCam as you did for the Alpa. So it seems some need a great name to understand what the facts are. As e.g. "real"wideangles are now nearly unusable on MF Viewcameras with 60 Mpix and up the need for an alternative concept was apparent.I really wondered why it took so long that others approved this.

In short - it is good the market leader Alpa also does now what we have started, it shows the concept is right and now I wish more shall come.May the market tell whom they will follow. I am just sure it will not be the "old mechanical stuff" and if Digital Medium Format shall survive there needs to be support, new concepts and phantasy from all actors and all makers in this range.

I took both images, overlayed them (without any rotation, scale, etc.) in difference mode for best alignment and compared several regions where I panned one image so the difference at the examined area was minimized.

After some on/off switching of layers at 400-1600% and observation of the whole picture I say this:

-Sharpness in both images is identical. You can observe this very good especially on the edge of the big letters.

-The Focal plane shutter image has a slightly, minuscule better light quality to it. As a consequence, more of the fine glints in the letters reflect back, making this image indeed a bit more pleasing, if I stare careful enough. Also reflections in other image parts look nicer.

Best regards

Quote

You will need a good monitor to look at these two images, particularly because things are not quite as clear with a JPEG, but if you look carefully at the edges of the numbers, at the fine textures and at the fine "pebble like" finish of the background in the license plate I trust you will agree that the image on the bottom is sharper and shows finer detail.

I've had my HCAM for years and it never failed. I actually also have an Alpa STC and never bothered getting anything shorter than 48mm for it, I'm really well served with the hartblei for that.

Calling a camera with such an original design that has been the workhorse for wide angle photography when compared to a new camera that is basically a luxury copy missing a through the lens viewfinder and unproven in the field is not fair. When I saw they removed the viewfinder I though they'd have made a much more compact version.

I'd much rather have something smaller that interacted with my existing ALPA stuff than one that is going to make me have to buy into a whole new system.

Also, any chance of sharing some of those fully shifted images with the 24 TSE II? I've done a series of test shots with it on the HCam and an IQ180 and find it quite soft towards the edges, with physical vignetting starting at around 6mm of shift (half of what it can do)

I can´t speak for Alpa but I suspect they solved this very similar like we did:

Our housing is made of one massive 40 mm strong milled aluminium plate, the minimum material thickness anywhere is not less than 5mm- more like 7-8mm and the frame is a cm or more.Around the shutter we have a rubber block on which the shutter itself is mounted. Around the shutter inside the housing there are metal websgiving additional stability. The material Mix of the aluminium,the rubber and the very low actually moving mass of the M645 DF shutter areleading to a non vibrating shutter release. You can put the fingertips on the camera when releasing and if you would not hear it, you would have a hard time to tell if theshutter is released or not.

I think the Mamiya Body is simply not stable enough to do the same wave elimination, AND - they still have a mirror to move away.Actually shooting out of hand does the next thing, a hand does not eliminate these movements as much as a solid tripod.And finally , although most people know they should use mirror up........ they don´t .

Regarding the comment, "... that Hartblei tried to produce a similar "universal" Medium Format camera some time ago, but the effort was a failure," I suspect that this is again another case of Mr. Dubovoy making an over the top statement. The review of the Hartblei camera that is linked was by Michael and it would be most useful to hear from him regarding this quote, as that review implies nothing of the sort. We've already heard from Stefan Steib on this point and I just think this is really poor journalism to put unsubstantiated statements in a review without some justification. Maybe Mr. Dubovoy believes it to be a failure but why? Disappointing to say the least.

My deep apologies for a typo. After I mentioned the Hartblei camera, I had another paragraph talking about something else that was a failure. When I deleted it, unfortunately some of the words remained and I did not notice that this ended up with the implication that the Hartblei camera was a failure. The typo has been removed.

Thanks for removing the "failure". What makes me still wondering is why did we "try to produce such a camera" ?

WE ARE building such a camera since 3 years and sell it to customers worldwide, who use this for their customers like Mercedes Benz, BMW, AGIP, varioust Architects and many many more.

Here is a link -in german(Sorry) to an article in German Magazine Digit! where another customer- Studio Riess (one of the largest in the Munich area) describes his works with the HCam and our lenses - see here:

My deep apologies for a typo. After I mentioned the Hartblei camera, I had another paragraph talking about something else that was a failure. When I deleted it, unfortunately some of the words remained and I did not notice that this ended up with the implication that the Hartblei camera was a failure. The typo has been removed.

The revised language posted by Mr. Dubovoy is still intellectually dishonest in two ways. As Mr. Steib points out and their website confirms, they are building a camera and not "trying" to do so. The fact that the camera has been on the market for three years represents an accomplishment, NOT an attempt. Secondly, the present language regarding the review of the Hartblei camera needs to be clarified to make it clear that Michael Reichman wrote the review as opposed to the language "...you can find our review of this device..." The review in question does not speak of any other reviewer. Now if Mr. Dubovoy has any experience at all with the Hartblei camera that should be clearly stated to the reader. The current language implies this in a rather perjorative manner. Surely some clear editorial thought needs to be exercised before posting a review of an interesting new product.

Thank you both very much. Appreciated ! I was sure this was just an error and not intention.Again - I really wish Alpa´s FPS will be a success ! This will help us all to keep the Pro Photography with Medium format devices alive and kicking !I would also be pleased if more companies take these proposals and try to give the market a new drive, new imagination and new "I want´s" for us gearheadsthat love our cameras .

This is such a small niche now, we all need to Cooperate, I had spoken with Alpa this summer and I knew what was going to come, and together with Thomas Weber, Ursula Capaul and André Oldani we were speaking about future devellopments of medium format and about the leaf shutters and much more. I hope Hartblei/HCam and Alpa will doa future cooperation on some areas and maybe this can help a new devellopment of interesting and powerful photographic devices.

Thank you both very much. Appreciated ! I was sure this was just an error and not intention.Again - I really wish Alpa´s FPS will be a success ! This will help us all to keep the Pro Photography with Medium format devices alive and kicking !I would also be pleased if more companies take these proposals and try to give the market a new drive, new imagination and new "I want´s" for us gearheadsthat love our cameras .

This is such a small niche now, we all need to Cooperate, I had spoken with Alpa this summer and I knew what was going to come, and together with Thomas Weber, Ursula Capaul and André Oldani we were speaking about future devellopments of medium format and about the leaf shutters and much more. I hope Hartblei/HCam and Alpa will doa future cooperation on some areas and maybe this can help a new devellopment of interesting and powerful photographic devices.

Yes MF needs new Backs with real Live View, may that be CMOS or anything else, but the actual status is not sufficient.

I made a proposal about this some time ago:All the Back makers should get down to a round table and concentrate their forces for the devellopment of a large CMOS chip.Think of it like the standardized Ford Cosworth 8 cylinder machine in the Formula one in the 70 and 80 ties, this worked for nearly 16 years andnobody could tell that during this time the races were boring.None on the actual makers have enouigh resources to do this alone, but together they could make it.

Cooperation is a must, if not this industry will sink like the Titanic, the music will play on the back of the ship while the front is already under water.And I am not sure if this isn´t already the case.......

It seems pretty clear that Leica is most likely to be the first with a CMOS based "MF" camera, unfortunately they don't do a standalone back.

Pentax is likely to be 2nd... Same story.

By that time the position of Hassy and Phase will have weakened since many potential buyers will of course understand that more resolution without live view has zero value. That's even without speaking about a 54mp D4x or 46mp Canon high res body.

If only Danes and Swedes could get along a bit better... or have gotten along 5 years ago.